Opting in Using Name & Email Help

Many people will think this is a good idea, undoubtedly.

I actually changed all mine the other way round - to ask for an email address only.

I think it's a mistake to require their names, and so do my subscribers, according to their feedback. It's something marketers like and customers don't, overall. Many people feel (and report) that it makes you "come across like an insurance salesperson", to use their names in autoresponder emails. And that's the last thing I want to do. Some people imagine that you gain something from "personalization" (as they typically call it) but I don't believe a word of it, and think there are far better and less salesy ways to achieve better outcomes anyway: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post6123982 .

You can test/compare for yourself, but in all my niches, I also found that my opt-in rates also went up by 12-15%, across the board, when I stopped asking for their names. So, for me, not "taking their names" was a real win/win: they prefer it, and there are more of them, too.

Many people disagree with what I'm saying, here, and feel that the quality of their list is somehow "improved" by having their names. I don't, for myself. They don't buy any less, click-through any less often, or open fewer emails. I've found no negative aspect to this, at all, and I've tested it in many different, unrelated niches.

Sorry - just offering a "different perspective", but I haven't actually answered your question.

You can either guess it from their email address and manually add it, or use their email address.

You have some pretty good advice already, but I'll add my 2 cents on the subject. Personally when I have signed up for something. I was much more likely to sign up when they just asked for my email. So what Alexa said is something you should consider. I also think you can definitely be on a personal level with people without using their name. When someone uses my name, its either a sales person or a authority or something where I have my guard up and am more deffensive. Think about your subscibers as friends. When I talk to my friends, I rarely address them by their name, even in emails to them.

If you do want to collect the first name anyways, the best way I can see fixing your problem is to either put all of the old subscriber names to something generic like, "friend", "subscriber", "guys and gals", etc. This way you don't have some random gibberish code or default value appearing in each email. A better fix, but a more intrusive one would be to send out a survey of some type collecting info about what your subscribers want to hear about. Somewhere on that survey request their name.

Hope that helps a little bit, but if it isn't too much work it would probably really be better to just change it back to just email alone.

- Jman

I don't really use the first names anyway.
Most of my emails even when I'm typing start with a Hi! or Hey,

People have subscribed to your list so should be aware there are many people also recieving the mail

If you're using Awever which I think you are the {!firstname_fix} will just be blank if there is no first name. So starting with "Hey {!firstname_fix}" will just be "Hey" without it (pretty sure this is right if not someone correct me). So no big worries. However, as others have stated your opt-in rate will be higher with only asking for e-mail addy's. So switch back and don't worry about it.

Thanks everybody for the response! I had my squeeze page outsourced on odesk. I'm not too technical and I do have hostgator. How would I take the name out of the squeeze page...where would it be located in hostgator...hopefully not too hard

Thanks again!

Call your autoresponder service and ask them what will happen, I would guess if there is no name then it will just be left blank, which should be fine.

I personally think collecting a name and email will make you the most money, and will boost response rates. I do this with my backend marketing, and my frontend list building efforts in my other niches.

People have mixed views about this, but i'm just talking from my (and others that i know) experiences.

This is a good question, I always use the name and email fields but have just very recently changed all my forms to email only and test this out see how it goes.

What I noticed was it seems some subscribers will type random characters in the name field for example I had one that was "gfgfgfgf" or "wannamakemoney" I understand that people may not want to give out their names so some don't take the name field seriously.

In regards to collecting a name, I like to think of it this way. When do I *ever* address my friends/family by name in an email? Never. And nobody ever does it for me. Who addresses me by name in emails? Marketing emails. Always. Anytime I see my name in the subject line, I know it's for marketing. 100% of the time.

Just something to think about. I think that sometimes as marketers, we just jump on the bandwagon on what everybody says to do, and we stop thinking like consumers.

Name is useless data... don't collect it, don't use it.